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Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
51–60 of 132 posts
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might want to read about "block time" or "block universe". In this theory, everything is already pre-computed, like an uncompressed video file. So you can skip to whatever frame you want since there is no state. > It is sometimes referred to as the "block time" or "block universe" theory due to its description of space-time as an unchanging four-dimensional "block", as opposed to the view of the world as a three-…
People who meditate often begin to slowly realize that ideas arise without concious thought. We imagine we are "thinking" but there really is no break in causality where we somehow choose how we want the future to unfold. Our brains are no more exempt from cause and effect than a marble rolling downhill is. It is a mistake to confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon itself. We don't preceive everything,…
While limited, studies using FMRI brain scans can detect "decisions" being made before they're consciously processed.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Superdeterminism, arguably misnamed, simply argues that QM is deterministic, where Bell and others have argued it is not. No, this is completely wrong. Super-determinism is more than determinism. Super-determinism is about conspiratorial coincidences – so the measurement settings you choose just happen to be the ones which will make it look like the world is quantum. Other quantum interpretations are also determini…
I think these consequences are only conspirational if time is an independent variable? What if everything, the entire universe’s past, present, and future ‘happened’ at the same time, as a self consistent solution of some kind of underlying equation or set of rules? Our brain, the seat of our perception of time, is part of the same universe that we’re trying to explain. Maybe time is an artifact of the self referenti…
It's still conspiratorial. You just happened to choose the right particles to measure? It makes a mockery of the idea of trying to do science at all - the experiments you take are already determined, you can't learn anything about what causes have what effects because you can't ever change a causal variable.
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#54This is the first time I've read some way of looking at quantum physics that actually make sense. I hope it is indeed correct and all those ~smart people who were putting their ridiculously complex theory of quantum physics at our throats end up being ridiculed.
This reminds me of Feynman's famous quote: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don't understand quantum mechanics." Frankly, I'm baffled how some scientists still clinge to classical physics and absolute determinism, just because they describe our macroscopic world nicely. People have tried to argue against quantum principles 100 years ago and some still do it today, even going so far as to believ…
Going with "if it is not weird enough, it can't be right" doesn't seem very scientific to me.
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#55I got a bit lost at the double slit experiment with superdeterminism. Can someone clarify what is supposed to be going on?
* We send one photon at a time through a double slit, don't measure them, and an interference pattern is formed, presumably because the probabilities of the particle going through each slit interfere with each other.
* If we measure the position of the particle, it goes through only one slit, and there's no interference pattern created.
* Standard QM says that the probability wave function representing the position of the particle "collapses" when measured and the particle then goes through only one slit with no interference when we measure it.
* Superdeterminism says that the initial state of the universe determined that we would measure the particle, and therefore it goes through one slit and there's no interference.
* What I don't understand is: why would there ever be interference in that case? If it's not probabilities interfering with each other what causes single photon interference in the double slit experiment in superdeterminism?
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think these consequences are only conspirational if time is an independent variable? What if everything, the entire universe’s past, present, and future ‘happened’ at the same time, as a self consistent solution of some kind of underlying equation or set of rules? Our brain, the seat of our perception of time, is part of the same universe that we’re trying to explain. Maybe time is an artifact of the self referenti…
It's still conspiratorial. You just happened to choose the right particles to measure? It makes a mockery of the idea of trying to do science at all - the experiments you take are already determined, you can't learn anything about what causes have what effects because you can't ever change a causal variable.
Well, I don’t know of any physical law that allows you to choose anything. Whether or not you believe QM is normally deterministic or super deterministic, you have to believe in something outside physics to make all of us not a necessary outcome of an initial state. That doesn’t diminish the pleasures or the reality of consciousness though, or the (illusion) of free will, at least not for me.
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of Feynman's famous quote: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics then you don't understand quantum mechanics." Frankly, I'm baffled how some scientists still clinge to classical physics and absolute determinism, just because they describe our macroscopic world nicely. People have tried to argue against quantum principles 100 years ago and some still do it today, even going so far as to believ…
Going with "if it is not weird enough, it can't be right" doesn't seem very scientific to me.
Nobody does that. We follow the math and the experimental results. There is friction against accepting what the results tell us, which is the odd thing.
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#58Quoted post unavailable.
Honest question, why did you have to go ad hominem? If you look at her papers she’s obviously well versed in QFT and GR. You may disagree with her philosophical views but making the case that she doesn’t understand QM doesn’t pass the smell test.
I didn't commit an ad hominem fallacy. I did not say that her blog is invalid because of her character. I was just commenting on her character (actually more so on her work tbh).
i.e. an insult is not an ad hominem. This is an ad hominem: "Your argument is wrong because ." This is not an ad hominem: "that they often wrong>"
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the context of Bell’s Theorem, statistical independence is understood to mean that, if extant, hidden variables are not correlated with how measurements are being performed. Bell’s Theorem is only correct if this assumption holds. Hossenfelder is arguing that the assumption is incorrect: that Bell’s Theorem is incorrect precisely because there ARE hidden variables and that these ARE correlated with measurement set…
At least for now, I'm willing to f'get about issues of "free will". Thanks, I will keep trying to make sense out of Bell's work. I keep getting stuck trying to read quantum mechanics: One place was the claim that the wave functions form a Hilbert space. Nope: As I read in W. Rudin, Real and Complex Analysis , a Hilbert space is a complete inner product space where complete means that every Cauchy convergent sequence…
> To me, we can take the Ace of Hearts and the Ace of Spades, shuffle them, and deal them out, face down, one each to Bob and Sally. Bob can go a light year away. Sally then looks at her card and knows right away, nothing faster than the speed of light needed, what Bob's card is.
> We know all the associated probability distributions for Bob and Sally. And we know that as soon as the cards are dealt what each of Bob and Sally have is determined -- so far unknown but still determined.
Right, so that's a hidden variable theory. But the Bell Inequalities give you a set of measurements that can't be explained by hidden variables - one simpler variation is Conway's "free will theorem": Bob and Alice each have something like 29 envelopes, and if he opens one of several sets of 3, then he will always find two black cards and one white card (and Alice will always find the opposite). But there's no way to "statically" assign black and white cards to envelopes so that all of these sets of 3 have that property. So either which cards are in which envelopes really is undetermined until Bob opens a set of 3, or you somehow know which envelopes Bob is going to open at the point where you're putting the cards in the envelopes.
Re: Does superdeterminism save quantum mechanics?
#60> Once you understand what’s going on with the double slit, all the other quantum effects that are allegedly mysterious or strange also make sense. Take for example a delayed choice experiment. In such an experiment, it’s only after the particle started its path that you decide whether to measure which slit it went through. And that gives the same result as the usual double slit experiment.
Delayed choice seems pretty silly in relativistic terms to me. If photons are massless, and distances they travel are 0, then there is no such thing deciding to measure the slit after the photon is emitted but before it reaches the slit, right? That's just a figment of our reference frame.